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Kokemiller tops in Paint horse competitions

By Jon Lloyd, Staff Writer

Taylor Kokemiller would rather be riding her horse, All About The Goods, than doing anything else.

No doubt the 17-year-old equestrienne is also thinking about competing – and winning – this summer in the American Paint Horse Association’s (APHA) competitions that are held throughout the Mid-western, plains and southern states.

Riding since she was seven years old and about to enter her senior year at Boone High School, Kokemiller has been named the 2012 APHA’s Zone 5 Youth 14-18 Champion and reserve champion (second place) in its Youth 14-18 Hunter Under Saddle division with her horse, a five-year-old Bay Roan Overo gelding that she nicknamed Stewie after the animated television show character in “Family Guy.”

Each year the APHA gives year-end awards to its top performers based on its different divisions and the events and regions where the riders and their horses compete.

Last year, Kokemiller amassed more than 500 points in the APHA’s Youth and Novice divisions at 11 sanctioned competitions which captured her champion and reserve champion awards. This included being named the association’s 2012 Novice Youth Hunter Under Saddle world champion.

“She’d ride every day if she could,” Taylor’s mother, Heidi Kokemiller, said. “She’s been riding her whole life. She’s always had a horse.”

Like mother like daughter. “I always had a horse,” said Heidi, who grew up on a farm in Boone and once competed in smaller Western Pleasure competitions.

Stewie’s boarded on Wade Spell’s farm in St. Louis, Heidi said, adding that Taylor and Spell, who is in his 30s, travel together to the association’s competitions, where he also competes and shows Stewie in the Western Pleasure open class.

“Taylor will spend the summer there with Wade and his wife, Laura,” said Heidi, a deputy auditor in the Boone County Auditor’s Office where she’s worked for 28 years.

“The people in the APHA are super nice,” she said. “Very nice people.”

According to the association which is based in Fort Worth, Texas, it is the world’s second-largest equine breed group with more than 50,000 members and more than one million registered horses. For the uninitiated, Hunter Under Saddle, along with dressage, is one of the two classic forms of English riding. There is no jumping. Contestants are judged with their horses in the ring with other competitors for walk, trot and canter, also called loping. In the bigger world and national shows competitors trot their horse down the center of the ring in front of all class judges.

In Western Pleasure, riders’ horses are judged on their manners, gate cadence, relative slow speed, and calm and responsive disposition.

“I wear a dark suit jacket and light shirt” black riding boots and black riding hat in Hunter Under Saddle competitions, said Taylor, who lives with her mother and father, Greg Kokemiller, on a farm in Madrid. Her older stepbrother, Kody, 22, works a farm near Madrid. Greg, who grew up in the Madrid/Luther area, works the family farm.

“He goes to competitions when he can,” Heidi said of her husband.

“The Hunter Under Saddle sport is different,” she said. “The kids are competitive, but there are no hard feelings. And the APHA are very good people to work with.”

Heidi easily recalls Taylor’s first event when she was seven.

“Ten years ago we did a little show in Perry, Iowa,” she said. “Taylor wanted to compete in the Western Pleasure class. We told her, ‘If you do good in the Hunter Under Saddle we’ll let you compete in Western Pleasure.’”

“She got second,” Heidi said. “That was the first show for her. How can you tell a kid who got second that they can’t compete in the Western Pleasure? She went on from there.”

This summer Taylor will ride Stewie in both smaller and larger APHA horse shows, including the Pinto World Show in Tulsa, Okla., where she will compete in both Hunter Under Saddle and Western Pleasure on May 31.

“The Paint world is higher competition than the Pinto world,” she said. “You get the best in the country.”

On July 1, Taylor plans to compete in both divisions in the Paint Youth World in Fort Worth, Texas, where last year she won unanimously the Novice Youth World title. This year, she’ll be shooting for the Youth class title. Toward the end of July, she’s off to the Paint Horse Congress in Kansas City, Mo. She will also enter the Ideal Paint English competition. Come holiday time, she’ll travel to Oklahoma City for the prestigious Holiday Classic. “I’ll also do a little bit of showmanship,” said Taylor, who was in 4-H. Taylor plans to go to college, though she is not yet sure where she will enroll. After she graduates from BHS this month, she’ll participate in APHA competitions for a full year before entering college.

“She’ll finish her youth career for the year after she graduates,” Heidi said.

What does Taylor like most about competing in the APHA competitions with Stewie?

“I like traveling and meeting new people and riding,” she said, adding, “I’d just like to thank my mom and dad and Wade and Laura Spell.”